Love Is Not A Victory March
by her name is erika
Summary: It's a series of cold and broken hallelujahs. / Or, the story of a forbidden affair told in four different parts. TravisVictoria, BillyVictoria. [AU].
1. The Minor Fall, The Major Lift

**Love Is Not A Victory Match  
** **Summary:** It's a series of cold and broken hallelujahs. / Or, the story of a forbidden affair told in four different parts. TravisVictoria. [AU].  
 **Notes** : This is the third extension of this Alternate Universe Y&R I've written. I've written two others ("Dance in the Dark" and "In the Land of Gods and Monsters") It's just rejuvenated my imagination and made it run wild. I just loved that world so much and there is so much to play with. I've had this idea in my head for a while, and felt it was best to split it so the reader can truly take it in. I hope you get on this journey with me. There are both messed up in their own ways, but I tried to again, give them shades of their Real Genoa City characteristics. If you don't like Travis and Victoria, then this is not for you. If you don't like Villy, this is not for you. If you still don't like either one but you want to read on, that's okay too. You're welcome to all the same.  
 **Notes:** I've done a bit of a bit of tweaking, three years later in 2019. Enjoy.  
 **Disclaimer:** I own nothing. Not the title, the chapter titles, the lyrics are part of the story. I own any character you don't recognize. That's about it. Feedback as always, would be much appreciated.

-Erika

* * *

 **PART ONE: the minor fall, the major lift**

 _He remembered when he had met his wife years earlier while he had tunnel vision throughout medical school and she, herself, was a tenacious budding lawyer. It had been a long engagement and an even simpler wedding although his sister had wanted to make it a big one financed by her second husband. Maybe it was a genuine familial gesture, a way to overcompensate for the lost time between them although she did not like Meredith very much – correction: at all. To be fair, Sharon was a prickly woman with the riches and glamour of her life as her shield. He understood that more than anyone. Sharon had her glamour and he had his work. It was far easier to unwrap the psychological problems of another._

 _Morning was just starting and his mornings were cyclical. It wasn't necessarily a bad thing because there was order, structure and he liked knowing what was next. The sun would rise and then it would set and in between, he'd work, be a good husband and continue falling in love with his daughter. It was something he never aspired to, but it was fulfilling and gratifying._

 _Every morning, Ellie would run out and he would happily listen to the chatter of the day. He'd take her in dark curls, mocha coloured skin, bright blue eyes – a wonderful biological anomaly (although it wasn't much of an anomaly at all, but recessive genes in eye colour winning out) and what made Ellie unique – and her smile. Meredith had sworn their daughter had inherited that from him. Then she'd come out, dressing as if ready to conquer to the courtroom and still as beautiful as the rainy day they had met. This morning was different from the rest though. Something had shifted with him and he was trying desperately to find his balance against this slippery slope._

 _As he kissed Ellie goodbye and then Meredith,_ _ **she**_ _crept into his edges of his mind. This complex, damaged, yet intriguing woman with the brown tresses, a faint smile that held her secrets and pale blue eyes with a gaze so intense he swore she could see parts of him nobody else could. It unnerved him, gave him a shot of anticipatory adrenaline and made him curious all at once. When she had smiled, those blue eyes sparkling with knowledge ensnared him._

 _He was sailing again. Only this time, the current was rough. The water curved itself up into a wave and then crashed down all over him yet there his patient was – a siren on jagged, dangerous rocks, laying there as if on clouds. He knew it was everything that could ever go wrong. His medical mind blared with bright red alarms and scrambled to re-draw the lines. The lines were good. The lines were his shield. The lines were his protection._

 _Yet for once, he did not care if he crashed and burned and the lines faded like Ellie's chalk drawing on wet asphalt. There was no Meredith here. He could Ellie screaming for him although it was distant and hard to decipher._

 _All Dr. Travis Crawford had was this crumbling vessel, rough waters and the all-consuming to sail to her as she called to him._

 _So, he did and let Victoria Abbott destroy them both._

—

 **I.  
** _(creating chaos just to prove we're alive)_

It's starts with the slow storm brewing in his own marriage.

He can feel it in every kiss, every touch, every smile, every taut conversation and this wrong relief he feels every time Meredith makes love to him and it's over. The sex isn't as he remembers anymore. She wants another chance – another chance to watch her belly grow, another chance to watch Ellie's face light up with every movement and kick.

She doesn't want the silence.

He can't possibly verbalize it and Meredith's screaming and sobbing gives him a healthy distraction, but while he consoles his wife, he's relieved.

The silence is the loudest sound and he wants to marinate in it.

—

When he arrives into his office, there's Ren. There's always Ren.

Today, she's in a red dress with a black blazer. Her dark hair is up in a bun. Her brown eyes don't have their usual heavy eyeliner. Although, she's focused on the computer in front of the screen in front of her. She's a mix of paternal Welsh and maternal Japanese and has quirkiness for days. He can respect that she makes his days easier to get through.

Ren also has this ability to say things that are in the grey area between inappropriate and glaringly true.

"Your coffee is brewing and your sister is responsible for the obscenely fat rolls of bills catching sweat between my boobs," she says, tapping a few keys and then turns to him when her usual bright smile. "Oh!" Ren goes into a drawer, and drops a fold on her desk. "New tortured soul for you. How's your morning?"

Travis studies her, and blinks, "Wait. Sharon's here? And…she gave you money?"

"Yes, and yes," Ren says, and corrects. "Well, it was a bribe, more than a gift, but all those bills are resting quite comfortably."

"She was out of line to do that. Give it back."

Ren laughs, "Look who woke up humorous today. Snaps to Ellie. No can do, Doc. And no," she adds with a playfully smug look on her face, "you can't fire me because I am the wind beneath the sails here and two, you'd be sleeping here every night. You need me."

His relationship with Ren is somewhere between professional and friendship. She's been his friend. His confidante. His conscience. His best bantering partner and the best honorary aunt to Ellie ever. He lets a chuckle out and it's one of the few moments of non-tension in his day. "Yes, I need you but you have to return the money."

"Thank you for admitting the truth and you're gonna have to get it yourself." Then she turns serious and lowers her voice. "Seriously, how is your morning?"

Travis takes the patient file and let his eyes travel over the details.

Married. Mother of three. Multiple suicide attempts. Childhood trauma. Prone to slight psychosis. Elavil. Extreme mood swings. Clozapine. Multiple institutionalizations. Manifestations of borderline personality disorder although shown to have above average intelligent quotient. Patient has visual and auditory hallucinations.

He furrows a brow, and flips through a few more pages.

"Hmm. My mornings are the same."

"Alright. I'll leave that alone."

"Thank you." Travis glances up at Ren. "When did this arrive?"

"Last night. I came in early, organizing it for you. It seems that you're pretty much the end of the therapy road. Her brother picked you out. Nicholas Newman? That name ring any bells?"

Nicholas Newman. His sister's ex-husband. His former brother in law. The one with a boatload of bravado. The one he doesn't care for. Yes, that Nick Newman. His incoming patient is _his_ sister.

"Yeah," he sighs, rubbing a tense spot near his temple. "He's my former brother-in-law."

"Shit! Your world just got claustrophobic."

Travis tosses her a look that clearly says he's aware and doesn't want to be.

"You can decide to make my sister's bribe, not one anymore," he warns as he walks toward his office and toward whatever Sharon has to say to him or whatever issues she has.

"I lied, Travis," he hears Ren's voice behind him with the sounds of keyboard strokes. "I put the money in my underwear."

He almost outright laughs. _Almost_.

She can't be serious about that.

However, it's Ren – so she _is_ serious and he loves her for it.

—

Sharon looks amazing as always with her expensive clothes, even more expensive shoes and well, the jewelry is part of her. It's as if Sharon wears pieces of the sun and the rest of them have to wear shades. Although, if he is being honest, Travis still thinks Sharon would shine as brightly as the entire solar system with the aesthetics.

Nonetheless, there she sits, in the chair opposite his desk, eyes sharp and whole demeanor annoyed.

"When?"

"Well, hello to you too, Sharon."

"Travis, this isn't a game."

"Wasn't aware we were playing one."

"Your marriage!" she finally snaps. "When are you divorcing her?"

He sets the patient file down, and finds a pen on his desk. Maybe it's a nervous tick or a way to have his brain focus on dexterity, Travis twirls a pen between his fingers. It's something he does since his medical school days. He forces his brain to visualize this pen twisting through and between his fingers from index to pinky and back again.

He stops, leaving the pen to stay between his middle and index fingers before setting it on his desk.

"You're my sister and I love you, but no. You absolutely cannot do this."

Sharon remains cool again, sits, and raises an eyebrow. "Do what? Tell you the truth? Because here it is, little brother. You had a stillbirth. It was awful and you can't deal with it. Or is it because Meredith cheated on you repeatedly only to get pregnant and you were happy that child died and you didn't have to know? You can't tell me you didn't have questions."

"He was mine, okay? And yes, I had questions and demanded a paternity test from the get go. Don't assume you know anything about Meredith and our marriage. We're not you and Nick. We're not even you and Jack," he rebuts even when Travis feels every nerve stretching like guitar strings. With every word out of her mouth, they vibrate, being plucked and sounding out of tune.

She smirks, "Women are petty. I'm petty. You give her another baby or she will take the one you already have. She will take Ellie from you," she sighs, looking like his sister, not like the queen who doesn't quite love her king but loves his power. "Every conversation starts with her undertones of her affair and ends one-sided wishes of a new baby, no? You can't live like that."

 _Yes_ , his mind speaks quietly.

"She wouldn't."

The thought of anybody taking his little girl from him would drive Travis to a kind of rage that would border on insanity. He'd gladly welcome it.

"Do you know what she's a capable of? Or, do you think you love her enough?"

"I don't love her! Is that what you want to hear, because I hate thinking it. It's not easy for me to pick up a pen and divorce papers. I don't know how I feel about her, but it's not how I felt when we met, Sharon…"

It's sounds like him, feels honest, feels real and now, the truth is out there. It's set free from wrapping itself around in his head.

"I knew that. Only because you wake up one way and when you look at them, it's completely different. I know you," she softens her tone. "Say the word and I will use every connection I have to help you. Dad wasn't present and when he was, he was a piece of a shit. He still is. Mom was sick," she glances, looking away before hardening again. It's a switch with her. It's an emotional safety blanket, Travis understands. This – his work as a whole – is his. She stands to go and so does he.

"But we did relatively okay, didn't we?"

"We did do okay, but you're going to be better."

They hug and she kisses his cheek before grabbing her clutch purse. She's about to walk through the door when Sharon pauses and taps a manicured nail on his office doorframe before turning with a smirk and a shrug. "If it makes you feel better, I don't love Jack either and I'm waiting for Nick to die."

Travis shakes his head, and can't help but smile at his sister's antics as he watches her go.

"Don't bribe my receptionist again!"

—

When Sharon leaves, Travis goes to his desk. He's not a brother anymore. Just a psychiatrist doing his job. As he shoves his wedding photo with Meredith into a desk drawer, he decides that he is okay with not being a husband anymore. But he smiles at the framed picture of Ellie in a pink tutu, pressing a kiss to his cheek. Travis is always a father. He's always Daddy.

* * *

 **II.  
** _(word on the street you're running low, lately)_

Victoria doesn't want therapy therefore she won't go as much as she loves Nick for getting her into it.

Alcohol is her therapy and sex is her religion.

However, the alcohol in the house is far more limited than she likes, so Victoria smashes the last empty bottle of alcohol in the house. There's no alcohol in the house and she's disgustingly sober. She watches it as gravity spends milliseconds pulling the glass _down, down, down_ until it explodes into smaller, tinier pieces of what she loves and what she craves. But it's empty. It's _fucking_ empty.

Victoria glances at her ring. The ruby stone glints back at her. _Billy did this,_ it says. _Billy took what you love from you,_ it whispers so quietly it tickles her ear. The whispers are cold and the monsters in her head are roaring loudly today. She needs to stop them and stop the screaming. Victoria needs to get what she wants back. So, she will.

She breaks more just to relieve the tension and hastily rummages to find what she needs to cause Billy maximum pain. She combs her hair back with her hand and when Victoria finally does, she smiles. The orange flame that the lighter produces when she runs the circular trigger against her thumb puts her in a euphoria stronger than any drug. It dances, twists and twirls and it's the most beautiful thing she's ever seen.

She releases the trigger and the dancing stops.

Fire is good. Fire makes her happy. Fire never lets her down.

Victoria walks over to the sound system and lets Ode to Joy permeate all through the house, through brick and drywall and under the roof. She spends two hours, burning through all these files written with precious Newman Enterprises secrets etched on them and a few Jabot ones in between. Billy loves these files. He loves holding them. He loves going through its content like treasures. He adores them more than her and that is fine. However, if she cannot have her vices and her liquid treasure – the ones that are always there and never leave like Daddy did – then neither will he.

She laughs and giggles the whole two hours. It's a fun process.

Paper, cinders, ash. Paper, cinder, ash. Paper, cinder, ash. Round and round it goes. When it stops, only Victoria knows and it makes her feel powerful.

—

Meredith storms in, all heels, straightened hair and agitation that seems palpable.

"What's wrong? Is it Ellie?"

"No. She's fine."

She paces.

"Okay, good. Well, how did trial go?" Travis asks his wife because it's the right thing to do, but there is a set frown on her glossed lips and clear anger in her eyes.

"It went fine. I won," Meredith grinds out and blows out an irritated breath. "You're the therapist in the room. Explain what the _hell_ is going on in your bitch of a sister's head. Please, Travis."

He can't control Sharon and what she does. She's a free thinking person with her motives and reasoning. However, it's not okay of her to bother Meredith though, no matter how many ways he keeps letting her know.

"I can't handle Sharon. I'm sorry. What exactly did she say?" Travis questions, mentally going through a list of all the abrasive, scathing things she could say and discreetly cringing at each one. However, he finds that Meredith's presence right now rubs his insides like sandpaper against tissues, nerves and muscle.

Meredith laughs and shakes her head. "I'd choke her if Ellie didn't love her. She basically said our marriage was a joke and she'd laugh the day I saw it. She said I didn't even know you and that was the greatest tragedy of all," she admits and Travis twirls that pen again. "She gets off on being cruel."

"It's not okay for her to rattle you this way. I understand," Travis assures, looking her in the eye from his seat. She stays across from him. He wants to see the girl who dances with no rhythm whatsoever and still laughs which in turns makes him laugh. Travis wants to see the woman who wings her wedding vows but it still means everything to him. He wants to see the woman who is especially radiant as her pregnancy with their daughter progresses. Instead, Travis sees the lawyer, the other man. He sees Meredith in his arms as hands that aren't his, explore every curve of her body, hears a barely audible moan that doesn't weave in between the syllables of _his_ name. He sees Meredith in the throes of another pregnancy that leaves him with questions than joy. Then he sees himself: trying not to sigh with relief when the baby boy discovered as his son die before he gets to live. Travis glances away, as his insides turn cold. "I'll take care of my sister. Again, I apologize – I, uh, have a new patient so I really like to be done reading through the patient file."

"Uh, yeah, of course," Meredith says, hastily and stands up. She adds, in a measured tone even though the anger and annoyance is there still, albeit less intensified. She meets his eyes – hers, a dark brown and sometimes a lighter shade depending on lighting – and then stares at the spot on his desk, their wedding photo now a ghost. He hears Meredith inhale sharply as if trying to navigate something internal break. There's no them anymore. Just Ellie. Her drawing is on the wall next to his multiple degrees. Meredith turns solemn yet she offers a wry smile. "Will you be home for dinner?"

"I'll be home before Ellie's bedtime."

Meredith raises an eyebrow. "That late?"

Travis shrugs, "I can't control when my patients need me. You know that."

"Can you control when Ellie needs you? What about when I need you?" Meredith nearly snaps, and stops and quickly wipes a tear from her cheek. "It's just… ever since we lost our son, you've been so distant. I'm just frustrated. I love that you're so passionate about your work, but when did you stop being passionate about me? I did everything right to protect our boy, to make sure he was healthy and he's still gone. I need to know if you blame me. Please just…"

Something like guilt settles in Travis' gut and he finds himself rushing to her.

"Hey, hey, hey… stop," he cuts her off gently, and like an old habit that refuses to die, Travis finds himself wiping away another tear with the pad of his thumb. "I don't blame you for anything. Stillbirth is a possibility when it comes to pregnancy. It's nobody's fault."

"I forgot how good you were at talking people down," she notes with a smile, and kisses him. Meredith's smooth hand remains on his face. "Can I pull you away for a bit?"

"Wish I could but," Travis gestures to the patient files on his desk, papers with notes in the margins. He likes to see the patient in his mind and filling in their shading before he meets him in full technicolour, "I have a bit of heavy reading."

She nods, resigned and heads towards the open door before she pauses.

"Sharon," Meredith says, voice small as her eyes are sparkling with unshed tears. "She's not right, is she? About our marriage?"

There's a pause that seems to go on forever when it's been a few seconds.

Travis glances down at the silver band around his finger and suddenly, he can't figure out what it means to him anymore. Although, he's trying to grasp onto something concrete and definite, but it's all so fluid.

"No," Travis lies yet answers her with just enough certainty to mask it as truth. He has patients armed with this ability. "It's just Sharon being Sharon."

"Okay. Thanks."

"No problem."

"Try your best to be home sooner?"

"Sure.

"I love you."

He says it back. It feels hollow like the rest of him.

—

Billy can take Victoria's liquid gold, but he can't take her fairy dust.

Messy, sparkly lines. Powder of magic and glitter all hers for the taking.

Victoria goes up into clouds and rays of the sun intertwine themselves in her hair. She's laughing, wild and free because she can see. Victoria can see him, tall as she remembers. His gaze is sharp like a hawk, his moustache still the same but he smiles and there's a twinkle in his eyes.

He's walking toward her and with every step, the ground gets a tremor that sends a jolt of recognition through her body. She wants to see him or she won't see at all. Then the sky rips open, stars fall and turn into falling fire. Victoria's falling with it and lands in the dirt. It burns. It all burns. It's everywhere – under her skin, in her veins, the spaces between her ribs. The fire squeezes the breath out of her.

Warmth gushes out of her and she sees it. Sticky, dark and the same colour as her ring. It's on her hands and it won't stop. It's everywhere.

Arms grab her and now, she's fighting against their grasp.

There's a voice in the haze, somewhere in the fire that burns all around her and will choke her with its smoke. It's soft and trying to make the screaming in her head stop. She recognizes the arms, cradling her. She recognizes the hands stroking her hair. More than anything, Victoria recognizes safety and security.

 _Nick._

"Vick, it's me…it's me."

"They're back. Make them go away. Make them…go away. _Make them leave!_ "

She's shaking because her magic has turned dark now.

 _Billy let us in and we will stay. You will never free of us, darling. Don't you know?_

—

Travis forgets to mention that Ren is sometimes, his shadow.

Has he been around her so long she can suddenly read his mind, and flip through that she does an issue of Cosmo? He doesn't realize he's been absentmindedly twisting his wedding ring, while reading until she calls him out on it. Ren appears with writing on her arm. Usually, she remembers his calls way. Today, the ink is blue and her scans her own writing.

"Call Dr. Levi at Memorial by tomorrow end of the business day. He needs to talk about an assessment with you, regarding Griffin Sawyer."

Ah, ten-year-old Griffin, his anger management patient.

"Thanks, Ren," he glances up at her. "Anything else?"

"Yeah. Your patient, Victoria Abbott," Ren says, and she cringes. "Her brother called in. It seems that she had another episode. Drugs. She started hallucinating. He found her extremely volatile. Like 'ready to go commit homicide volatile' and is a danger to herself and others. She's in a 48-hour psychiatric hold. Would you like me to have you call him back?"

Travis laughs, sardonically, "Nick Newman doesn't 'call'. He summons."

He stands, pulling on his jacket and grabbing his keys.

"Good to know," Ren replies, with a slow nod and a look of slight confusion on her features. Her eyes widen as if something rings in her hand while Travis' is running on autopilot. He's running through every detail in Mrs. Abbott's file and at the same time, tries to quell this slight pounding in his head at the possibility of dealing with Nick. In a roundabout way, they are family. Nick's kids mean he has one nephew and three nieces. They are Ellie's cousins. It stops there. He won't be bonding over beer with the guy. Ren's voice is like white noise until Travis pauses at the mention of Ellie over his mental static. "Before you go, I already know this will be a while because you have this obsessive need to be thorough. With everything."

"No, I don't. I just happen to prefer organization."

"Extreme organization," Ren argues back, folding her arms. "What the hell do I tell your wife when you inevitably can't be there to read Ellie her bedtime story?"

He looks at Ren with a look that says she should get what he's suggesting and if she doesn't, he'll borderline beg. Emphasis on borderline. Speaking of borderline, there's a patient for him to assess –

"No! No… what the hell? You want _me_ to do it?"

"Yes. It's a win-win. You cover for me as a friend, and Ellie's been asking for you. She actually likes you and it takes her a while to stop being shy around strangers. I'll handle Meredith."

She frowns, and glares at him. "You don't pay me well enough."

He breezes by, and grins. "You have my sister's money. Payment by association."

"You know that's not a thing!" Ren yells at his back.

He's just kidding. Travis will get her a raise.

Maybe.

However, he does have to make it Memorial and get to his patient's doctor before he becomes a real recommendation.

* * *

 **III.  
** _(i've seen your dark side, now there's no turning back)_

When Travis arrives to Memorial, Nick continues to rub him the wrong way. Sure, Nick is a powerful guy, in theory but he could fit the archetype of idiot.

"My sister was high out of her mind. I broke into the house only to find her huddled on the floor, clawing at herself and begging me to make _them_ go away. What are you going to do about it?"

"Me?" he asks, almost stunned. Sharon deserves a gold medal of some sort. "You think this is an easy fix? I just have a few talks with your sister and she'll be better? She's a complex case, Nick. I have to see where she is mentally, her medication, if any other alternate forms of therapy… it's not as instant as you think. Or, at all. You care about your sister's well-being. It's admirable. I'll do what's best for Victoria and do everything to give her the best care."

"You'd better."

Travis plasters on a smile and says with a hint of sarcasm, "Have I mentioned how nice it is to know that you're divorced from my sister? Great talk, Nick."

He wonders how the hell Sharon puts up with this man for one day, much less long enough to have four children with him.

—

Nick goes back into Victoria's room and he figures he might as well meet the husband sitting in the waiting room, shoulders hunched like the weight of the world sits on him and could suffocate him.

He also meets Victoria's husband, Billy Abbott. He has dark hair, his eyes are glistening with anger, tears and he looks like a man who truly loves his wife. Like he wishes he can look at Meredith again and is trying to. Billy's tie is loose around his neck. Travis notes that the man looks exhausted in a way that goes beyond the physical kind.

"She did this to punish me," he blurts out to no one, his gaze trained on the ground. He looks up and before Travis can formally introduce himself, Billy looks up and looks at him. "Nick told me. You're my wife's new therapist?"

"Yes."

He stands and smiles although he's not happy. He offers his hand. "Ah, you're Sharon's younger brother, Travis. She's mentioned you."

"Guilty as charged."

It's a good, firm handshake.

"It seems as if we're in-laws, Doc."

Travis ponders it, and nods, with a smile of his own, "…in a Six Degrees of Separation kind of way. Maybe you could help me with something. Your wife had an appointment to see me but unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be the case. You said she had done something to punish you?"

He sits in the chair across from Billy because one, it's the one closest to him and two, power dynamics. Between the two of them, Travis is the one with the medical degree and license to practice, but they're both human.

Billy frowns, and rubs a hand over his face. Then he laughs, but it sounds bitter. "Yeah. Victoria has always been a troubled woman because her dad abandoned her when she was young. She had some horrible things happen to her as a kid. I've tried…everything I could possibly do to understand and empathize. I've been patient," he smiles, faintly and Travis can see a man who loves his wife. He can't relate. At least, he can feel guilty about it on some level. "When she's not like this, she's the woman I married. She's the best mother to our kids. Sometimes, when I look her in the eyes, I can almost my wife looking back at me. Then she's gone. I love her, but she loves to punish me more. I took all the liquor. So, she burned sensitive work documents she knows I can't get back in any capacity. Oh God…I can't get them back... I don't know how to win when I'm competing against her demons…."

"I'm sorry for your ordeal."

"Don't be," he answers, sharply and then apologizes. "Just… Do what you have to. My children need their mother."

Travis watches Victoria's husband twist his wedding band around his finger and he figures by the way he does this, there's a man who also needs his wife.

—

Her head is a little fuzzy, her thoughts jumbled and erratic like mental alphabet soup. The alphabet is wrong and twisted beyond anything when she has to get it back into something that looks like order. Victoria forces her eyes to focus and looks down to follow the trail of the skinny, clear tube. It ends with a needle burrowed beneath her hand, hitting a vein.

Victoria's hospital gown remains scratchy and corrosive against her skin and her throat is dry. Something has a grip on one of her wrists and when Victoria tries to pull it off, it doesn't loosen. She looks down and see a restraint of leather held together and bound with buckles. _Oh, this is kinky,_ she thinks with a light laugh that makes her head pound slightly. There's a figure, blurry standing by her bed and hard to make out. When Victoria blinks again, it's Nick and she grins.

"Hi."

"Victoria…"

"Oh…don't furrow your brow…at me like that," she coughs, voice scratchy. Nick grabs her a cup of water and she drinks it through a straw before he takes it away and sits down again. She releases a breath and her throat feels better. "Thank you. And you're welcome."

"What do I need to thank you for?"

In the frenzy to avoid sedation, Victoria remembers the sharp sound of plastic hitting the white, glistening floor. She hopes in the middle of the medicine being ice cold spreading in the pathways underneath that Nick catches it. It's black against white. It's dark against pure, blinding light.

"You'll remember when I was set to kill the nurses that something fell. Like plastic? Perhaps, something black?" she says, behind a smile. Victoria likes this game of hide-or-seek. She's hidden away, running before Nick can see and she's waiting for him to count and find her. _Come find me, Nick. Remember, Nick._ Something flashes in her brother's eyes and he pauses, before retrieving that little black object from his pocket. He studies it and glances at her. "It's a…flash drive. Did you set this up?"

"This happened because I would have tried to kill myself again," she shrugs. Maybe Victoria's not creative enough. "But I was going to give you that…and then they wouldn't be quiet and I had to make them go and they got worse…"

"Don't scare me like this…"

"I'm sorry," she says, and isn't sure she's even sincere. She is, to a certain extent. Victoria is sorry where Nick is concerned. "But I was harmless to Billy drunk. I wasn't sober. Now, you can cause him harm and Jabot harm. You have a pocketful of Jabot secrets, dear brother."

"You swear I can cripple Jabot with this?"

"You can do more than cripple it. You can watch it swirl down the drain. I burned the paper version. He was stupid enough to think I wouldn't know how to break the safe open and he was going to hurt you," Victoria uses her free hand to run a hand through her hair and get rid of the agitation that sits on her chest. "He could have left you alone! He could have let me have it. He could have let me be, Nick! I don't need therapy! I don't _want_ therapy!"

She goes to pulling against the restraint that locks against her wrist. Victoria's pulling at the straps with her nails and buckles, fingers cramping although she likes the pain.

"I don't want a damn shrink! Billy made you do this! He made you do to me! He keeps trying to save me and fix me! I don't…want to _be fixed_!"

Nick restrains her gently, but with enough force to get her attention.

"No," Nick says, firmly. "Billy's your husband. He loves you. I hate him, but he _loves_ you."

What is love? Is it an idea? Is it a word people say to just make themselves feel human? Is it a small, little word that is just twisted around until it means sex that rips a person apart or the kind that makes them so wrapped up in ecstasy they can't grasp anything else? _Love is the force that drives people to leave you, Victoria. Love will kill you. Love will strangle you in your sleep. Love is why we are here and will keep you safe._ _ **We**_ _will not leave you._

She can see the flecks of blue in Nick's irises.

He softens, holding her hands and grins. It's one he keeps to himself and shares with no one but her, Victoria knows this. Although perhaps, Lily gets to see it too.

"I love you, Victoria. You and me, remember? Get help for _me_."

Victoria remembers the brother who protects her, the one who doesn't ever leave.

"Okay," she relents, quietly and feels his lips on the side of her head. "You're a good brother."

—

Between conferencing with Mrs. Abbott's physician and cross-referencing that with her psychiatric history, he's been here a couple hours. According to Nick, she's fallen asleep. His phone rings and he leaves to take the call. Not that Travis minds it. He's thankful for it and like clockwork, his phone starts to ring.

He glances down at the screen and answers, "Ren?"

"No, Daddy, it's me. Ellie! I'm borrowing Aunt Rennie's phone."

"Hi, baby," Travis answers, and it's just now hitting him how much he misses his daughter. "You being good for her?"

"Yes. She's telling me all about Japan…" she tells him, enthusiastically. Of course, Ren would tell his kid wacky stories of things that really aren't in the mindset of an adult. But it will most likely make her happy. "Daddy, where are you?"

"The hospital," Travis then explains in five-year-old terms. "Remember what I told you about people needing me when they're heart sick?"

He helps Ellie understand the difference between being sick, as in having the flu and being heart sick like being sick on the inside. There's silence, probably Ellie being pensive.

"Oh. And someone needs you right now? Like a superhero?"

"Yeah. Something like that."

"Okay," Ellie says brightly. "I love you, Daddy."

Travis remembers Ellie putting her little feet on top of his to dance. He remembers her finally learning to ride a two wheeler, despite falling numerous times. But his daughter is resilient and doesn't care about the boo-boos. He remembers every bedtime story he ever tells her – real and imagined. He remembers the early days of her premature birth, seeing her in the clear incubator. She's tiny and helpless and Travis is by no means religious but he tosses a prayer out there in the universe and hopes for his baby's sake, it's answered. He remembers when he finally is allowed to touch his daughter, her tiny hand finds his finger. Even tinier fingers curl around it and he swears, it's love.

Travis tells Ellie he misses her and loves her to the deepest ocean, the widest sky, every star, every planet in the solar around the sun and back again.

Ellie giggles, and he can see her broad smile in his mind. "That's a lot of love!"

"Well, it's how I feel about you, sweetheart. I always will. Can you pass the phone to Ren, please? Tell your Mom I'll be home."

"Okay! Bye, Daddy," and then he hears shuffling and finally Ren's voice.

"Storytime Fairy speaking."

"Hey, Ren," Travis greets, mildly relieved she's holding down the fort for him, yet anticipating when he will have to go home and face Meredith. "Thanks again for this. For taking care of her. How's…Meredith?"

Ren answers bluntly, "She's tolerant, Travis. That's how she is. Tolerant," she goes on to explain. "She didn't mind that I was here to hang out with Ellie. I love that kid but she wanted you. She's in her study working, but I think she's hiding for a little bit. That's just me. You know why I came in early today? After weeks of resentment, I clocked my boyfriend in the face and left the house. Don't force Meredith to hurt you."

He sighs and swears under his breath.

Where's there is smoke, there will finally be fire, it seems.

—

She teases sleep and makes it think it has won, but it doesn't. Victoria will rip Mr. Sandman's arms off.

The hospital is sterile and makes her feel something like claustrophobia. The song of a bird hits her ears and causes her to wonder if she could fly. If she were to stand to on a window ledge high enough or look down over a rooftop, would she fly? If she did fly and was completely free, where would she land? Where would she go?

Victoria hears the flapping of wings and then it's quiet.

 _Look,_ the voices dark and raspy in her head speak again, _that bird gets to be carried away. Freedom passes you by, sweet Victoria. What's a queen without the freedom to be their own master?_

That stupid bird gets to fly. That stupid creature gets to be free.

Victoria frowns because she hates that bird.

—

Travis could say when he finally meets Victoria Abbott, the world stops or the Earth's axis tilt just the tiniest bit. There could be the loudest of bangs and the quietest of whimpers. But it's not like that all. Instead, she's in the hospital bed, held by one restraint on her wrist. He can't help but notice how beautiful she is in a wild kind of way.

His patient's hair is tousled, and her eyes are a shade of blue he's never seen before.

Travis can say when she looks at him, there's something electric.

He's left trapped between sky and sea.

He's not quite sure to define the space between. _Yet_.

—

Victoria realizes this new therapist of hers is cute in a straight-laced, pull-a-woman's-chair-out-so-she-can-sit, kind of way.

He looks like the type of man to bring a woman flowers after a long day at work and might even be the type to hold her hand during a walk. There's a flash of sliver as he smiles at her and offers her his hand to shake. _Married_. It's a soft, gentle hand. There's a tiny warmth in her chest that she can't define or make sure of so she pulls away. Victoria wishes the warmth away so it can't be twisted. It may be something good and she doesn't know how to deal with anything good. Not her. Never her.

"May I sit?"

"You're asking me?"

"Just trying to be a gentleman, first, before I get to be your therapist."

Victoria finds herself laughing, gets a look at his blue eyes again and they are kind in a disarming way. She stops laughing, and shrugs, "Okay, sure. Have a seat… what did you say your name was?"

"Dr. Travis Crawford. Nice to finally meet you, Mrs. Abbott."

"Victoria _Newman_ ," she corrects, with a smile that is barely seen. "And…likewise."

—

Travis doesn't want to do anything intensive. He doesn't even want to speak to her as if he's read the patient file neatly folded away and colour coded on his desk. He's only aiming for a free flowing conversation. He just wants to get to know her. She asks him to call her Victoria, only she can call him Travis. She is as smart as her patient file but he's realizing she's really perceptive.

Mid-sentence, she stops and stares at him, inquisitively with a light frown in her mouth.

"You went to school all these years to hear other people's problems? Why?"

Travis flashes back to being a kid who doesn't understand why he can't hear his mom's singing in his dreams anymore. His mom is gone. At first, his dad tells him and Sharon that Mom's trip is for a little while. She's gone away to get better and will be back. She's gone for three years only for Sharon to glare at their father and snap, "Tell him, you sack of crap! Tell him where Mom is! Tell him how you locked her away with no thought!"

"Sharon…" Travis' eyes dart between his dad and Sharon when he wants to focus on his math homework. Dad is mad. Sharon is screaming, angry and crying. He's scared. Mom is supposed to come back. She needs help getting back home but she's coming back, right?

"Tell me what? Mom's away at Nana's."

"Travis, go upstairs. I have to speak to your sister alone."

"No! He isn't going anywhere. _Tell him_. Or, I will," she mutters, choking back a sob. He doesn't like it when Sharon cries, doesn't like it when Dad is mad either, but Mom is coming back from her vacation to fix anything, right? "God, you make me sick."

—

It comes down to this:

he's eight when his mother is gone, and eleven when he is told by Sharon with tears in her eyes that their mom is dead. He's fifteen when he punches his dad in the face for hitting Sharon, sixteen when he takes a baseball bat to that beat up Chevy and promises it will be his head if he hurts Sharon at night in that way – or any other way – ever again.

—

Travis is eighteen, with Sharon being twenty-one both move out of the house, setting to head in different directions to nowhere.

With one last pinky swear, they promise to find each other again.

It feels like hours but it's been only a couple minutes. He's at the hospital. He's at the hospital with Victoria, who stares at him with no surprise or questioning in her face. There's no judgment. Travis can't help but be angry with himself. He's like that bastard into another facet of his life. _Damnit_. But it's not about _his_ emotions. It never is.

"You're a drifter."

"Excuse me?"

"A drifter. You drift into some place in your head to escape what hurts you," Victoria says, bluntly, looking _through_ him. She leans in slightly and taps an index finger against her lip, the nail painted a shiny black colour. "I don't know why you decided to have a career in listening to others when you could be – I don't know – a bartender to do that."

Travis can't possibly see himself a bartender. Maybe, he thinks, maybe in a past life.

"I'm not the bartending type, I'm afraid. But it's never about me in this space."

She nods, slowly, "Right because it's all about _my_ deep, dark secrets. I shouldn't have asked why you're a shrink. Your eyes. There's a lot of pain there. You have demons like I do. Someone hurt you, too."

Something's happening. It's all swaying in front of him, like the gentle current of water. Travis is in the middle of his own ocean, floating, but there's a sense of alarm in his head. He could float away with no way to get back to land. He could disappear into nothing. He could be pulled downward into a whirlpool.

Travis manages an easy polite smile, answering with the only thing that comes to mind.

He straddles that line between transparency and locked secrets in a rusted mental closet. He likes the lines clear. He likes the lines, sharp and defined – knowing where one end starts and where the one starts.

"Don't we all?"

Her laughter sounds like a song waiting to be composed.

Victoria's eyes sparkle and it is her who extends her free hand so he can shake it.

Travis takes her hand in his, feeling as if he is holding a ball of electricity. Her hand is smooth and soft like expensive silk. He locks eyes with her and there is something building between them, block by block. There's something in her eyes he recognizes – something beyond his career and why he is even there.

"I think this will be a start of a beautiful partnership."

Travis drops her hand gently, and replies with a half-smile, "That's the plan, Victoria. I'll leave you to rest."

"You're a sweetheart. Thank you."

—

Victoria watches Travis go, and lays back into bed with a smile on her lips.

She might like therapy. She may like him – she doesn't know in what way yet.

Billy and Nick are both in her room now. They both pepper her with questions, but she doesn't want to tell Nick to stop or tell Billy to shut up. She's not paying attention to that – or them. Victoria is instead paying to soft electricity that bounces off the walls and the currents that travels across the windows, sparkling like glitter.

In her head, it's quiet.

—

Part of being a therapist comes with admitting the truth. It's about truths that may be right, wrong or a bit of both. Sometimes, truths are put things together and tear things apart beyond repair. Truth and deceit are conventional enemies, normal rivals, but in some instances, they are dance partners.

Here is Travis' truth as he drives home when the sun has long set and it's so dark, it seems thick enough to swallow the stars.

When he tries to conjure up Meredith's face, he's struggling to bring into clear focus.

Instead, he sees wild, tousled hair, Victoria's eyes, and her luminous smile.

There's still the expensive silk in Travis' palm.


	2. She Tied You to The Kitchen Chair

**Love Is Not A Victory March  
** **Summary:** It's a series of cold and broken hallelujahs / Or, the story of a forbidden affair told in four different parts. TravisVictoria, BillyVictoria. [AU].  
 **Notes:** Okay, I'm back with Part 2. There was exams, school, and real life, but I've got some time. And by time, I mean I am now on vacation with a lot of time on my hands. Six weeks worth. I've edited this to the best of my ability and be warned that this one is a little darker than the last but it's needed for what will happen next. I do have a rough outline of things next but I don't know when this will be updated again because I want to work on old things and write new things. As I write this, I have two new ideas taking up space in my head and want to pin it down before it goes away. Sorry for the six month delay.  
 **Notes 2:** The song lyrics are from AWOLNATION's "Sail" (section IV), Halsey's "Hold Me Down" (section V), Halsey's "Gasoline" (section VI) and Rihanna and Eminem's "Numb" (section VII). Please listen to these for maximum effect.  
 **Disclaimer:** I own nothing, beloved.

* * *

 **PART TWO: she tied you to the kitchen chair**

 _Every night was the same for her._

 _Her husband had the ponies and the poker chips to keep him warm but she never quite felt lonely. There was always good, reliable alcohol to lull her into a sleep of artificial warmth. Other nights, Molly arrived with her pixie dust and her pockets full of rainbows. But this night was different. Victoria wasn't going upward or being pulled downward. She didn't seem to float out of her body either. Sanity had arrived tonight even though it was a stranger. Her children were growing and evolving in front of hers. Reed was sweet yet a broody teenager who may have inherited her dark parts more than her lighter ones. She'd never say it but while she loved that they were so close, it scared her._

 _Johnny was a goofy child, jovial and wildly funny. He had the ability to find the humour in everything in his world. It was a world of joy, untouched by scary things in it. When Victoria was clear, she felt the weight of maternal love more acutely and she would surprise herself with her own laughter. When she looked her little girl, Victoria was sure she hadn't done anything deserving enough to have her. Yet here was her angel-faced Katherine who seemed to find reasons to love her. Victoria would feel little arms hug her waist. She would be sober enough to feel Katherine's little head in her lap. When Victoria drank herself to sleep, she felt gentle little hands, soft on her cheek and then they were gone._

 _After that, it was just her and the abyss._

 _Victoria walked into the kitchen for a drink or a late- night cigarette – it didn't matter or she couldn't remember. What stuck out to her in the middle of the fog was when she padded into the dark kitchen. She saw a hunched figure at the table and glass managed to twinkle even then. She turned on the light and walked closer only to find Billy staring blankly ahead. He held a bottle back its skinny neck and tipped it back to get to the amber liquid inside. He was drunk while she was not. Rather, she was curious. Curiosity killed the cat, they said. But cats had nine lives, did they not? She went into a drawer and fished out a glass ashtray and placed it on the table, finally sitting before Billy asked her to. It didn't matter if he did or didn't._

" _What has crawled up your ass and died this time? Another of one of your Jabot bitches irritate you?"_

 _Billy laughed and tapped a beat on the glass surface. Then he looked at her._

" _Better than being_ _ **your**_ _bitch."_

 _He did have beautiful eyes, Victoria noted. They were stormy and flashed with their own lightning and Victoria could not stop the smirk that tugged at her lips._

" _Will you ever let me love you, Vick?"_

 _She sighed, and fished a pack of her favorite brand of cigarettes and lighter from her pocket of her blue satin night coat. Victoria expertly put the cigarette between her lips and set a flame to the end of it. She took in the first drag as its end glowed a bright orange. Victoria let the smoke rest comfortably in her lungs while the nicotine travelled on its own path to her brain and stretched itself to its different islands._

 _When she got clarity from the smoke and mental sharpness in her mind, she set the smoke free and watched it, wisps and all, twist and bend until it disappeared._

" _Love… it's very abstract to me," she admitted, in a way that was far too honest for her. Her cigarette stayed between her slender fingers and the red stone in her ring seemed darker to her even in this light. She felt as though love wasn't in her emotional repertoire. Instead, Billy became the target of comfortable emotions that were dark and geared toward breaking him. If only Billy was warped, twisted and bloody beyond repair just like her, maybe then, she could understand him. Victoria continued in between making her cigarette disappear in size for the nicotine buzz that kept her mellow and euphoric. At the same, Billy drained more of that amber coloured liquid, wincing at the fire in his throat most likely. "I wish I was more…consistent but I'm not. What love means to me today won't be the same tomorrow," Victoria allowed a rare, genuine smile to pull at her lips. "I could be gentle with you today and my rough tomorrow. How could you love a woman who has waking nightmares in her head? Doesn't it get tiring?"_

 _Billy glanced down and then back at her, combing a hand through his dark hair. He laughed, and it sounded if he had swallowed razor blades and was trying to cough them back up._

 _Of course, Victoria was acquainted with those edges and reveled in the rush of being cut._

" _I made vows. For better or for worse. I meant them."_

 _A beat went by and then she sighed. "You're a good man, Billy, but you're an idiot. I'm not a good woman and I'll continue giving you outs until you take them."_

" _Damnit. We're going to kill each other in the end, aren't we?"_

" _It seems that way," she replied, shaking the ash off the tip of the cigarette before putting it out. Understanding blows through the kitchen like an unexpected wind. It wasn't warm but it left cold pin pricks on Victoria's skin and she couldn't quite process it. it was a foreign feeling. It could have been as strange as seeing a colourful parrot with feet or as dangerous as a snake who slithered with shiny scales and fangs bared, dripping with poison. She glanced away from Billy. He was trying to see through her and Victoria would not let him. "I wish I was good enough for you to understand me."_

" _I'm trying. I'm twisting myself into knots! I want to look at my wife and feel like I do understand her!" he almost yelled, but couldn't because of the kids sleeping upstairs. Victoria could see his frustration because it mirrors hers. It was at different points in time, but it was almost similar to hers. She stood and walked over to him, allowing herself to stand between Billy's thighs. Billy's hands found her hips naturally and Victoria felt the roughness of his scruff between her palms as she held his face._

" _What do you want from me?"_

" _I don't…"_

 _Victoria pressed a kiss to his lips, slow and deep before she pulled away but whispered against his lips. "What do you_ _ **want**_ _from me, Billy?"_

 _He gazed up at her with darkened eyes now and stood up to his full height to kiss her. Billy found her lips and Victoria gasped involuntarily at this newfound ferocity. He unraveled her messy bun, tresses tumbling and free to have his fingers roaming through them. His hands traveled down to the belt of her light blue satin night coat as he worked to unravel the knot and really, unravel her._

 _Victoria pulled his grey shirt over his head, throwing so it landed somewhere she couldn't care where. He pulled off the night coat and her fingers danced over the waistband of his pants. She smiled, as she fell down a rabbit hole of ecstasy and Billy's lips found her neck._

 _She knew what Billy wanted from her and Victoria would give it to him._

 _As Victoria felt the cool tile of the kitchen against her skin and Billy's warmth at the same time, he broke her name into syllables that went heavenward. She arched into his touches, breathed his name like a prayer for sanity. When Billy moved inside of her, sanity left her. It was a victory of sorts to get Billy on his back. She worked deftly and expertly. Victoria kissed his torso, then his navel before coming back up to the surface under the blanket covering both, legs intertwined._

 _Like an archer setting their arrow on the wound string of a bow, Billy's sharp intake of breath was evidence of her reaching her target. Her hand enclosed around him and she preceded to wind him up slowly and tortuously with a smirk. Billy groaned under her, begged her to stop and then begged her for more. Billy groaned once again, and Victoria silenced it with another kiss. She cried out as he flipped her over so she was staring up at him. Victoria could remember every curve and feature of his face. Her hands were held above her arms tightly by the wrists and Victoria smiled, delirious with pleasure._

" _Be as rough as you want, Billy."_

 _Billy slid himself into the pinkness between her thighs and did as she asked._

 _He became a knife. He became a sharpened sword. With every breath, it quickened. With every grunt stemmed from repressed anger, Victoria felt the bruises bloom like flowers under spring sunshine. Billy stabbed her repeatedly with more force as his speed increased. His edges grew sharper. Finally, Victoria yelled out his name with her nails in his back as he tore her to many pieces._

—

 **IV.  
** _(they shush me, walking me across a fragile line)_

Being high on drugs doesn't make the brain melt to goo. In fact, it makes all five senses sharper. Colours are so vivid and saturated. Hearing is more intense as if sound enters Victoria's feet with buzzing. She can touch her skin and make little ripples like water being hit. Logic seeps in and Victoria comes to discover that if she tilts her wrist the right way and she loosens the silver buckle with enough force, she can slip her wrist right.

Mira, her nurse, looks like spilled wine against Victoria's pristine hospital floor. She's figured how to be free and do it as quietly as possible. Victoria's teeth bite her bottom lip slightly in concentration while her blue eyes dart to the nurse crumpled on the floor and then to the door. Victoria doesn't mean to hit her that hard but she needs to get out of here. She bites back a cry as she slowly pulls the needles out of her arm. They've been in there too long. They've been doing their job of carrying sedatives to her system, drugs that makes her break through the surface. Then cold, medical hands push her underneath before Victoria can draw any breath.

Her hand shake against the cool surface of the curve of the silver bed pan. Victoria is sort of sorry for hurting Mira and even more sorry for the streak of crimson that comes from her head. However, when Victoria runs down an empty hall in a building where new life comes in above her and life ends beneath, she doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things. She's one patient in a murky soup of many and for that, she's not sorry.

She runs so her bare feet and the floor have the smallest bits of air between them. Victoria is part light wind and dark shadow. She can go through cracks in a door and walk along walls but most of all, Victoria can be a pretty bird for one day. Laughter escapes Victoria's lips like bubbles made of exertion and adrenaline yet she pushes that cold steel door. Wind greets her and the moon plays hide-and-seek behind clouds like her.

When Victoria looks up and sees sky above her again, she's free.

—

There's sound on the hospital roof. If it's music there are no lyrics that make any sense. It could be static noise that sound of standing still in the middle of a hurricane.

Victoria is in her own circus, walking on a tightrope with careful precision. Beneath her are fireflies that glow and ants that scuttle about with no care in the world. Above her, the sky has changed. It's as if God takes coveted diamonds only to hide them from the devil.

 _Invisibility, my dear, can be found if you want it bad enough. Jump and it will embrace you in flight._ Victoria pauses, slightly, the roof's surface like gravel and thorns beneath the pads of her feet. She is still standing in the middle of the hurricane. Everything moves and whips themselves around her but she remains immobile.

A slow smile pulls itself across Victoria's face.

"No," Victoria says and the word comes out in a whisper when she intends for it to be as loud as a roar. "No. I don't want to be invisible, Dad."

They will know her name when she tears herself apart and takes the world down with her.

"Catch a falling and put in your pocket…" she starts singing. "Never let it fade away…"

 _ **We know you. We know your every waking nightmare and every fantasy in the shadows. Isn't that enough, sweetheart?**_

She lets herself imagine slipping off the tightrope but another voice, loud and booming catches her before she can fly. It's Billy. _It's always Billy_.

"Victoria! Please! Don't… don't do this to the kids. Don't do this to us! Get down!"

Victoria slowly places her foot back down and turns around, still maintaining her balance. She was born for this, it seems. Dr. Rayburn, although Ben is an adorable name and rolls off her tongue easily, is standing there slowly coming toward her. He smiles at her while Billy's gaze is intense and his eyes earnest. They are also pleading with shades of angry.

Billy's voice trembles, along with his jaw. "Vick…please."

"I like it up here. _Leav_ e."

"I love you."

Victoria thinks of the storm brewing inside of Reed colliding with the pure innocence embedded inside of Johnny and Katie. Human narratives, she believes, are stretched out like thread. Some pieces of thread are short, while others stretch more miles. She can feel her thread – the beginning, the middle still in construction and the end that will be inevitably on her terms. Victoria's life thread is more razor wire. It burrows under her veins, finds pathways through arteries, embeds its hooks into muscles and tendons. Then she feels it growing where it's tangled and knotted the most: in her sternum behind her heart.

"Hi, Victoria," the doctor greets, warmly. She shifts her eyes away from her husband to the doctor with the baby blue eyes. "Remember me?"

The air blows her hair back but she nods and offers him a smile.

"Hi, Dr. Rayburn."

"I have a kid too, y'know. A son. His name is Max," he says, with a half-smile. Victoria sees Dr. Rayburn's offered hand in front of her and Billy's face behind her. "So, why don't you come down and you can tell me about yours."

"Johnny is my funny boy," she says, in a detached tone, her eyes focused on Billy. "He likes rocket ships, dinosaurs and laughs a lot. He makes _me_ laugh," Victoria continues, and she feels like stone as she stands on the hospital roof ledge. "Katie is my birthday girl. We have the same birthday. She has a smile that makes everything better. She's sassy and stubborn but she got sunshine. I…I have a teenage boy, Reed. His dad died," Victoria smiles at the macabre nature of it all. "A needle in his arm. JT and I were too alike but it was bad. We were like Sid and Nancy, I guess. But Billy loves Reed and even adopted him. He's getting all of my dark parts but he's more parent than child at home."

Victoria breaks away from Billy's gaze and barely shivers at the ball of ice churning in her stomach. She meets the doctor's eyes and still, his hand is offered to her. This time she takes it and he helps her, making sure she lands on her feet away from the ledge.

Dr. Rayburn says, still enclosing her hand with his bigger one. "Your kids sound like good ones. Like their mom."

Victoria glances at the doctor. She studies his face. "Can I tell you something, Dr. Rayburn?"

"Sure."

"I like you," Victoria says, with a light smile. Any day, this is considered a sort of flirtation. Maybe one day when their paths cross, but it's a different context now. "You heal people."

He chuckles. "It's what I do. But it's a little drafty here. Let's go back. Sound good?"

"Yes. It sounds okay," she agrees taking his hand, suddenly tired and walks over to Billy. Victoria doesn't remember how many steps she takes. She doesn't remember the handsome doctor politely leaving when he's paged to go save another patient in a kind of distress lighter than hers. Most likely. She walks into Billy's arms and let him enclose them around her. Victoria releases a breath she's been holding in her lungs when Billy presses a kiss to her forehead.

Victoria lets herself stay in the familiar but she's comfortable with the strange.

—

"Dr. Rayburn says the nurse you hit over the head will be fine. Slight concussion, but fine."

Mira falls the way the paper curls with dark, ashen edges. It shouldn't make her smile.

"Dr. Rayburn is an amazing doctor," Victoria replies, with a nonchalant shrug. Then rolls her eyes at Billy's frown. He glances away from here and continues to stand there at the foot of her bed. "Oh, stop looking at me like that. You don't care about that nurse any more than I do. So," Victoria shifts in her bed, making herself ready for whatever will tumble out of Billy's mouth, "let's get the invisible elephant out of the way, shall we?"

Billy laughs, and it's a hollow one. "Wow. You… you nearly kill yourself again tonight and you don't want to address that? Unbelievable…"

Sure. Victoria is deciding whether to fly or stay grounded.

One thing about the euphoria of drugs when saturated with it, is the rage that comes with being without it and empty. It's the kind of rage that makes a person sets everything ablaze. It's the quiet fidgeting, the craving, the way control of the body slips away bit by bit when the mind twists into something of its own and is not understandable. Billy is an addict just like her. Gambling is his vice, his gateway to a high and power at Jabot is what he loves most.

Billy has all the telltale signs of withdrawal — the shaking, the fidgeting and the way he paces up and down because of the nervous energy because he needs to keep himself whole.

"It's not about me, Billy. It's about us."

"No…no," Billy shakes his head. Ah, there's the anger. It will be fun for Victoria when the rage makes its appearance. "You won't put this on me!"

He makes her beautiful oasis of alcohol into a desert of sobriety. Billy's the enemy yet her husband. She must, in some backward way, love him. Victoria's head isn't supposed to paint a macabre picture of all the way Billy meets his death. Yet it does and really, keeps in this bed. Glancing at her wedding ring, she raises a shaking hand to her line of vision.

"It's already on you," Victoria finally says, tone like steel. She pins him with glare. " _You_ did this to me. You took what makes me happy so I destroyed what you want to hold on to the most! It's amazing what heavy reading I can do when drinking isn't taking up my time. Tell me, Billy. Does Jack know that you're siphoning money from Jabot to play with the ponies? Does he know that pieces of Jabot are breaking away while John Abbott does somersaults in his grave?"

"Please—"

"…or…or that you're playing chess with the divisions because the President of Jabot is so damn steady. Oh! And there was that deeply buried section of laundering Jabot money to make the numbers say what they were. What will Jack say when he knows his little brother is killing what your dad built? Lord knows you'd crawl on glass and sell your soul for his approval. Jack won't give it to you. You know one or two things about money laundering, don't you?" she laughed, "If you're going to do illegal things, at least, be smart, honey. But I guess, it's too much to ask when you can't quite count to 21 when you gamble. Guess what, husband? Nick's going to kill Jabot and I will watch it burn!"

" _Enough_ , Victoria!" Billy roars. He turns incredulous. He's red faced and she's nonchalant. He speaks, equal parts enraged as he steps closer to meet her eyes. There's that storm and lightning in them again, but she learns he comes with his own brand of thunder. "I tried to help you. You're out of control. I do _everything_ to understand. You were going to jump off a _fucking_ roof tonight! That is the reality of the situation and still, I stupidly love you."

"You don't love me," she answers, cutting through his words. Victoria is hoping it feels like a knife embedded so deeply in Billy's skin he can't get it out. Maybe they will hit him like bombs. Well, the shrapnel.

"How do you figure that?" He makes himself comfortable on the stool near the bed.

"I do what I want. I love having sex with the occasional woman in our bed, but I'm not an idiot. You love the _idea_ of loving me. Poor, alcoholic me and you, the long-suffering husband. The _embodiment_ of stability and zen like patience. You love me so people can look at me and then look at you and say, 'Wow, William…you do so well. How are you so patient with that wife of yours? You saint…' Then you get that stupid smile on your face, respond, tie it up with a neat bow," Victoria explains, neither happy nor angry. Just matter-of-fact. She's a little quieter, dropping her gaze so it falls into her lap instead. She looks at Billy once more and there's a current of electricity sparks in the room neither want to touch or acknowledge. "You love me because I'm your social crutch. Everyone knows about me and I don't care. You, on the other hand, are a fraud in a nice suit."

He reaches out and strokes the apple of her cheek with a thumb softly. "Sometimes," Billy whispers, more to himself than her, "I wonder if I have the courage to kill you. For you, Victoria. I've sold my soul _for you_. I've sold it _to_ you."

Billy leans in, wraps the two syllables of _sleep well_ with a kiss in her hair and leaves.

—

She falls into a sleep that rewinds time.

Victoria can't think. She can't function. It doesn't matter now, because she's seventeen again. She will _always_ be seventeen.

* * *

 **V.  
** _(maybe i'm a different breed, maybe i'm not listening.)_

Meredith Knight – she doesn't take Travis' last name upon marriage – takes a break from looking at her next case to come downstairs for a glass of wine. Her nerves are frayed and there is a pressure that resides behind her eyes. She hears Ellie's giggles at whatever Ren is telling her and for that, she is grateful. Meredith is grateful her baby girl is ever joyful. She's happy that Ren is a distraction for her daughter but she wishes Travis were here.

She pads down the carpeted stairs of her home, unable to focus. Meredith reaches the last stair and enters the kitchen when she raises her dark brown eyes, seeing what he isn't supposed to in the sliding back door. This will derail everything and Meredith can't let it. She won't. Her heart almost stops when she sees green eyes she looks into many times, and dark hair neatly styled but left messy when she combs her fingers through it roughly during sex.

Meredith's eyes dart upstairs and then toward the driveway where the headlights of Travis' car could expose them once more. She glances upstairs again, hoping Ren and Ellie will be engulfed in pre-bedtime stories and silliness while down here, things are in a haze of seriousness.

She takes in a shuddering breath just enough to get air into her windpipe, into her lungs. With as much quiet as she can manage, Meredith opens the sliding door to meet her intruder when he isn't one at all.

The words of an old Creole proverb her grandmother used to say, stretches in her head and makes the pressure worse and her heart heavy as a block of cement.

 _Jen e vais vous prêter un baton pour me casser la tête._

 _ **I'm not going to give you the stick to break my head with.**_

—

He makes one tiny little stop.

After all, Travis does promise to handle Sharon's venom as much as possible. He's smart enough to know that if his sister is pushed, she pushes back and everyone suffers her wrath. He's the only one smart enough not to react.

Travis isn't going to stay long but he has to take care of this before it becomes another half-truth added to the list of many.

He knocks on the door of the Abbott mansion.

When Sharon opens the door, she steps aside to let him in and closes the door a little harder than she probably intends. He sees she's wound up and her eyes look a little wild. More than anything, Travis notices Sharon's skin is flushed and she's been crying. The uncle in him worries and wants to know where Faith is and if she's okay.

Everything Travis weaves together in his head neatly unravels in the middle of Sharon's chaos. Suddenly, Meredith doesn't matter. As bad as that sounds.

She starts to pace the length of the living room.

"Sharon, where's Jack?"

"Out doing Chairman related things because he's still thinking he owns Jabot."

He glances quickly at the long, winding staircase. Usually, his niece is either asleep or happily bounding down it. Faith is practically Ellie's hero and his niece is scarily too smart for someone her age. An old soul. As her uncle, Travis never feels like he's the adult between them. Faith has a very sharpness of awareness of self and of others. Travis is hoping if Faith isn't going to be a ballerina, an astronaut or future president of the United States, there might be a small chance she follows in his footsteps.

"And Faith?"

Sharon's eyes flash with anger now. "At a sleepover. I don't want her to be here when I curse her father. Damnit, Nick!"

She grabs a crystal tumbler and throws it against the fireplace.

"Cassie is pregnant and grieving her fiancée! Nobody knows how David even died. Mariah was strangely silent during the entire funeral. There was no sarcasm. No inappropriate morbid wise-crack. I don't know it, but I'm their mom. Mariah is fiercely loyal to Nick and she won't break that. Not even for me. He's got his hands all over this which he's playing with _my_ daughters and I'll kill him for it!" his sister rants before she quiets down and unshed tears spring to her eyes. She whips a small one that has started its descent quickly. Sharon sniffles and glares at him. "Why are you staring at me like that?"

"Like what?" Travis counters, genuinely confused. He learns that when Sharon gets angry and starts to rant, she throws her temper outward because she can't deal with what's on the inside at the time.

"Like you're about to ask me if I've taken my meds today."

He sighs. "Well, have you?"

Sharon glares, and Travis doesn't flinch.

"Yes! I'm not manic. Don't make slap me you. I swear…" she starts to threaten, although it's empty. If she truly wants to slap him she'll do it. She looks deflated and sinks into the couch, patting the spot next to her. "Get over here. If I have to be miserable and awful, so do you, little brother."

Travis could be heading home to his wife and Ellie is asleep, dead to the world. His daughter is a heavy sleeper and can sleep through anything. However, he wants to continue Charlotte's Web with her and feels guilt that he can't at the time. He's wired to make decisions and decipher situations through logical means. Other times, he makes decisions and realizations with his gut. Right now, Travis feel a slight twisting in his gut. It nearly hurts and he's more than concerned where his sister is concerned. He feels the metal of the baseball bat in his hands and could hit whatever rattles her.

They live very different lives, but their pasts are parallel and yet perpendicular. Same house. Same emotions. Same kind of shadow and yet different coping mechanisms.

Travis sits next to her, "Of course. Misery loves company."

Sharon fiddles with her wedding ring, different facets of light hitting the glittering rock, causing it to glint and sparkle. Okay. Although Nick isn't his favourite person – he's really low on the likability scale – this has nothing to do with him. Travis thinks he may have an idea because Sharon looks at him that way. She glances at him this way the day he finds out his mother dies.

"The warden called me," Sharon starts to explain and he can't possibly understand that. He knows why there's a warden, a cell block and who resides in an eight by ten cell. Travis knows who may be housed in the deep recesses of solitary confinement, but he can't say it. There is no way Travis will make that real when he works hard to keep it away from him. He works doubly hard to keep it away from Ellie.

"Okay…" he replies, slowly. "Why would the warden call you?"

"Because Daddy dearest isn't there anymore. He's gone."

"He's dead," Travis hears himself blurt out and it makes Sharon laugh, even when she's still looking at him like that. His gut is a pretzel. It's the only logical situation. There's a prison shanking that turns fatal, and the warden needs them to identify the body since they are next of kin. "You need to stop looking at me like that and just tell me he _died_ , so I can go home to my kid. Say the words, Sharon."

"No."

" _Say them!"_

"No," she replies, and there is ice behind her eyes. "Absolutely not and you _will_ deal."

"Why the _hell_ not?"

Travis may or may not feel sick to his stomach right now.

"Because we're never that lucky! I don't want to lie to you about this when I can't do it to myself!" Sharon snaps and then sighs. She stands and starts pacing. "He's gone because he _escaped_ and no one has an idea where he is."

Someone is squeezing Travis' head hard enough to make him see stars.

"Bourbon?" Sharon questions him with a knowing glance.

Travis takes hers and drains it in one gulp instead.

—

Meredith lets him in and he has to go just as quickly.

She wants her marriage. She wants her husband. She wants to mourn her son and wants to get another chance to maybe make another living breathing masterpiece with Travis. If she can walk into a courtroom and fix what is legally broken, surely Meredith can do it under her own roof.

"You have five minutes," Meredith says resolutely, looking him in the eye. She crosses her arms to protect herself, to protect herself from _him_ and to tell herself the fringes of coldness that colour Travis' warmth is a product of her imagination.

However, the woman sitting on a stair in the middle of the staircase, is not.

—

"I'm going to have that prison burned down. I swear—"

Travis doesn't want to know the circumstances, and he doesn't want to know why.

"Before you set anything on fire," Travis says, pulling on his jacket and feeling for his car keys. He glanced at his phone and sees that Ren is practically dragging him home, yelling at him. She tends to become cranky when impatient. "I need to see Ellie and you have to check on Faith and Cassie. He's not stupid enough to cross international borders. Noah and Mariah are fine. Like it or not, he's aware he has grandchildren and may attempt to get to them."

Sharon glances through the intricate glass on the door of the mansion before she walks him out. When he's outside again, Travis feels a bitter chill unusual for March in the air. He doesn't care and lets it settle on his skin. Something about making the synapses sharp.

"Ellie is five years old," Travis tells his sister with a lump in his throat. "Five whole years. Five years of innocence. Her long-term scope isn't even that far," he admits with a chuckle. "She wants a puppy. She wants a damn puppy for her birthday. Five, Sharon. That's the number of women he killed…"

He hates how his dad can turn him back into that kid, teetering between searing anger and crippling fear. Travis wants to punch something so his knuckles are raw, but the thin threads of his original intention come together. They come together in Travis' mind intertwined with memories of Meredith beautiful in her wedding dress.

Right. Meredith. This time, he can thank her for the distraction.

"Do me a favour and try to be nice to Meredith."

"I'll be much nicer when you divorce her."

"Leave her alone, Sharon."

"Okay."

"I mean it and—" Travis starts to warn her and then stops mid-sentence. He swears he hears Sharon agree to be a semi-decent human to his wife but he isn't quite sure. Surely, she doesn't just decide to be agreeable just like that. "Wait, what? Did you just agree to stop hassling Meredith for your own amusement?"

She rolls her eyes. "Yes. With _him_ on the loose, I don't care about her brittle feelings. Not that I ever did to begin with."

"It's a start. Thank you," Travis says, sincerely. He touches her arm when he sees tears well up in Sharon's eyes again. She trembles under his palm so he pulls her into a hug. Sharon releases a shuddering breath that has nothing to do with the cold. He gently pulls away. "If I haven't said it today, I do love you."

Sharon offers a smirk through tears she's wiping away. She doesn't care about the eyeliner and the mascara, Travis can tell she'll care tomorrow.

"I love me too. But yeah, I love you, too," she replies, and swats his shoulder playfully, before rubbing both of hers against the cold. "Now, get out of here and give my niece a squeeze for me."

"Only if you tell Faith I'll be at her recital next week."

He turns to go, and walks up the long driveway to his car, and calls Cassie as late as it is to check in. Travis will go home. He will hold Ellie's sleeping form in his arms, listen to her steady breathing, and watch her be in the middle of whatever her subconscious conjures up. He's fine with the Sandman passing him by tonight and he needs to be awake enough to hope for tomorrow.

—

"I missed you."

"That's all you came to say to me?"

"No, I didn't. I heard about your miscarriage and I tried to offer my condolences – tell you how sorry I was but I knew…I had to stay away, but I couldn't. I know how much your son meant to you. I see what holding on this marriage is doing to you," Damien says softly while his fingertips circle her wrist. It might as well be heated iron on her skin blistering it so Meredith jerks away.

"Don't… I want my marriage. That's what I know. I want to work things out with Travis."

Damien raises an eyebrow and looks around before his eyes turn quizzical and pierce her.

"Of course, you do," he says. "You say you want your marriage and to go back to the way things were. Before this. Before us," he nods. "I can respect that. So, where is he tonight?"

Meredith will not let him unravel her. Not again. Not this time. Not ever.

"That's none of your business. You have three minutes."

"You're smart. Brilliant, and beyond beautiful," Damien says, softly with a smile. It's the smile that sends a spark a fire in the pit of her belly. There are dimples and dear God, the gravity in her kitchen gets heavier. Meredith's knees could very well buckle. She could tumble and fall, not even caring where she lands as she selfishly hopes to land somewhere. Then Meredith remembers rain – how much there is of it when Travis gets on bended knee and proposes in the middle of Bourbon Street. Meredith's breath hitches and her chest hurts. There are memories of her husband and her lover inside of her, all teeth and claws. The idea of truth is torn and foreign. How the hell does it get here? "Which means you know what you really want and it's…me."

Meredith digs her teeth into the soft, fleshy inside of her cheek.

She wants to taste her own blood and forget what Damien tastes like and the ecstasy it causes.

"I told you," she answers, measured even as a tear collides with granite. It's hers. She wipes at her eyes with a sniffle and lifts her chin stubbornly high. "We're done, Damien. We were _neve_ r supposed to start. It was a mistake. All of it. You have two minutes."

"I would respect your wishes if I knew you weren't going to be hurt."

Meredith folds her arms, frowning. "Travis would never hurt me."

"When I married Lena, I said I would never cheat on her and fall out of love with her," Damien takes careful steps toward her and Meredith backs away. His scent – like sandalwood and earth – is enough to put her in a chokehold. "I bet when you married him, you weren't going to cheat. That's what you told yourself. All those times I held you in my arms and touched you, you knew. You still know the truth."

"You have one minute."

Damien sighs, and presses a light kiss to her cheek. He holds her face gently and can't quite tell him to stop and let go of her. Meredith's wedding ring feels foreign.

"He _will_ toy with you. When Travis breaks your heart _and_ your head, I'll be here."

"He won't," Meredith says, resolutely. He won't because they can still fix this. "Please, leave. He'll be home any minute and frankly, I can't deal with a brawl right now."

Damien releases her and turns to go but adds, "I'm divorcing Lena. I told her the truth – the affair, my feelings, and everything in between. I told her I loved you. I told her I'm in love with you."

"Please stop," Meredith nearly begs. She's trembling. "Don't say things like that to me."

"I can't," Damian answers, with a smile that doesn't reach his eyes. He pauses long enough for a heartbeat to occur for them both. His eyes shine with tears fighting to reveal themselves. "The baby was mine, wasn't he? He was _our_ son."

Meredith glances down and asks him to leave. His voice is broken, but carries no blame.

"Goodnight, Mer."

Finally, Meredith watches Damien open the slide door, and disappear into the night. She takes the stick and breaks her own damn head, she realizes sobbing quietly.

—

Meredith's so wrapped up her own storm she doesn't notice Ren standing behind her, offering her a pack of tissues from her clutch. She takes the tissues from the other woman and whispers a thank you. Ren is standing there with her hair loose and free from her bun, her now dark brown, almond shaped eyes not so rimmed with dark eyeliner anymore and her lips not so glossy but still strikingly beautiful in an off-beat kind of way. Meredith spies the pieces of a tattoo and is curious about this colourful lotus flower back tattoo, Ellie thinks is awesome. But it's not her business. Still, it's natural human curiosity and at least, this tattoo related one won't ruin lives.

"Um, Ellie's crashed out," Ren says, awkwardly, jerking a thumb behind her. "So, I'm going to head home. Keep those. You look like you need them more than I do."

"How much of that did you hear?"

"Nothing, really. It's not my business."

"Thank you," Meredith repeats, blowing a breath out just to feel her lungs expand.

Ren looks at her confused and chuckles. "Yeah. It's cool. Those tissues aren't made of diamonds or anything."

"No, I mean…thank you. For Ellie. For tonight. You know, she's not that great with strangers. She's really shy around them. However, my daughter loves you and Travis trusted you enough to make you her godmother."

"I'm honored," Ren answers, with a light smile and glances upstairs. "Ellie's not hard to love. I have several soft spots for that kid. I know you wanted Travis here tonight and I'm sorry you were stuck with little ol' me. I'm going to leave and go home," she brings her hand to her mouth to mask a yawn. "As you can see, I'm pretty beat."

"Yeah, sure… I'll walk you out."

"Thanks."

As Ren leaves, Meredith can't help but wonder.

If Travis trusts her with Ellie – and he's a protective yet loving father – then what other things are spoken and unspoken between them in confidence?

There's something about Ren. Something that makes it easy to talk to her. She and Travis must talk for hours. They must have their own language the two of them understand, and a special pattern only they know the rhythm to. How deeply is this woman entrenched in her husband's mind if not his heart?

When she struggles with those questions, the green-eyed monster stabs Meredith in the heart with its claws.

Meredith loves Travis. That kind of love is sure, stable, and secure. That love gives them a beautiful little girl who is joy personified and dreams of clouds and cotton candy. She wants a pet unicorn. Or a puppy.

This kind of love carries destroys. _Damien hurts. Damien destroys_.

It destroys and burns everything around her until she's choked by the smoke.

Meredith leans against her front door and rests a hand against her abdomen.

 _You and I both know the truth. No, no._

He doesn't. Travis doesn't know either and with a little more time, Meredith will forget.

—

When Travis finally gets home, it's dark except the kitchen.

He drives the long way home to give himself something to concentrate on, and curses when he drops his house keys twice. He could have a beer and stay downstairs in the pin drop silence, replaying every possible scenario that leads to his father escaping prison. A convicted serial killer leaves custody. Ellie's grandfather. Travis could still hope – even though he's not a make a wish and hope kind of man – it's a misunderstanding and he's truly died. Until then, Travis will call Ren in the morning and yeah, he'll see Victoria Newman at eleven in the morning. 11 AM.

In this moment, he will forgo the beer and push the prison escape out of his mind.

As for his new patient, it doesn't mean anything but she stays on the fringes of it.

A little voice snaps him out of his mental hamster wheel.

"Daddy?"

Travis finds his daughter standing in her purple and pink pajamas. Her curls are everywhere and her eyes are glazed over with the remnants of sleep. He crouches to her level, as she rubs her eyes with the back of her hand and yawns.

"Hey, babe," Travis smiles, warmly. Her hair. Her blue beautiful eyes. Her voice. Her laugh. God, he's truly missed her and is sorry he isn't here to continue Charlotte's Web. He presses a kiss to her forehead and scopes her up in his arms. He's playfully stern with her. "What are you doing up, _Elizabeth_?"

"I woke up from a bad dream," she explains, and frowns in questioning. "Where were you?"

"Well," Travis begins, and sits her down on the edge of the counter. Ellie starts to swing her little legs absentmindedly, "I had to see Aunt Sharon today. She was a little sad and I had to make her feel better. She's okay now. But I'm happy I'm home. I missed you like crazy. You know, you're my number one girl, right?"

Ellie grins and throws her little arms around his neck.

"You're my number one daddy."

She pulls apart as Travis gently brushes a dark curl away from her face. Ellie's eyes start to grow heavy with sleep and she yawns.

"Let's get you back to bed, sweetheart."

"I'm…not tired."

"If you don't go back to bed, I can't chase the bad dreams away."

"I can do it myself, Daddy," Ellie protests, with another yawn. Travis feels his daughter smile against his shoulder. "S'okay. I'll let you do...it."

Ellie's head rests on his shoulder.

Her protests are replaced by little snores and they're one of the most beautiful sounds Travis ever hears.

—

Once upon a time, there's a boy who learns more than he should. He has a natural curiosity and reads everything. But with this increase in knowledge, there is the prize of realizing – realizing that forecasters lie when they promise sunshine and there's torrential rain, realizing that things and people break around him, realizing that glass sounds sharp when it breaks and realizing that Travis will crawl on miles of that broken glass to keep things straight and organized. _Everything in its place. A place for everything._

If he stares at that wedding picture long enough, it will correct that small tilt. It's crooked but it will straighten itself out. Travis is twirling a pen he doesn't remember finding between his fingers from thumb to pinky and back again. The lighting is off, the silver frame isn't as prominent and the colours are dull. He rubs his free hand over his eyes when it feels like they've been open forever and a century. Then he wonders. Who the fuck is that guy?

"You're doing it," a smooth, female voice says and for the first time, she appears in front of him. Her hands are cold against his, yet she wears a dress of red and orange flames that do not burn. Travis finds his hand free from hers and feels the soft skin of her face. Those eyes. A little piece of her tresses between his fingers. Her full mouth curled up into something between a smile and smirk. Victoria. Victoria Newman. She has knowledge, too.

She can see things but how does far does this sight go?

"What am I doing?" Travis inquires, dropping his hand. He laughs, sardonically. "My subconscious is breaking. I'm a goddamn therapist but I'm losing it."

She shakes her head, and looks at him sympathetically.

"No. You're sane. Everyone on the outside isn't. Do you have to look for perfection when it is something you're detached from?"

Travis manages to pull his gaze away from the wedding photo on the wall and looks at woman staring at the wedding photo thoughtfully.

"Hmmm. Meredith. Your wife?"

"Yes," he says truthfully, with a nod. There's a tuxedo, a while dress and a child full of magic to prove it. Those are facts. He feels steady in those concrete facts when Victoria – or rather, this apparition of her – is far too abstract. "She's my wife. I love her."

"Okay."

Before Travis can really say anything, the photo tilts at a ninety-degree angle, then at one hundred and twenty. Somewhere between one thirty and one fifty, the whole thing is pulled down and comes down with a loud sound. It's sharp and metallic as glass breaks, the wooden frame splinters and the photo itself tears itself into pieces as many as the grains of sand.

Only when Travis wakes in his master bedroom does he feel something is truly wrong.

* * *

 **VI.  
** _(_ _well my heart is gold and my hands are cold)_

Reed is sixteen years of semi-dark brooding and sensibility.

For reasons beyond her comprehension, he's a tall lanky teenager but behind her son's eyes lies an old soul. He broods most of the time, is sexually active already because habits of the mother must trigger the behaviour of the son. It also could be that Reed has the mind of a person's who has experienced everything life can throw at one person and older in mind than body.

Once again, the kids aren't with her. At least, not in any way that matters.

Katherine and Johnny are napping upstairs. Reed's upstairs with his girlfriend, Jade.

She's so wrapped up in her knotted thoughts and working at how to loose them enough to make sense. There's this damn therapy session at eleven this morning.

Victoria stares at an empty crystal tumbler, amber drops of rum pooled at the bottom.

And then Reed's voice snaps her out of her mental rabbit hole.

"Mom?"

Victoria smiles as Reed plops next to her. An unsmoked cigarette is behind his ear. She pulls it out and shows it to him with a raised eyebrow as if to question him. It's one of her menthol ones. She wants Reed to make better decisions. Don't be like his father who dies with more track marks in his arm than she can count. Don't be like her who lets death brush its cold fingers against the smooth lines of her throat before it squeezes all the breath of her.

"You know I hate when you smoke."

He shrugs and takes the cigarette back from her, and puts back behind his ear.

"No, you hate when I smoke _now_ ," he replies with a half-smile she can't resist. Her son is so big, somewhere between boy and man. Victoria sighs, and plays with his hair. She's sober and medicated today. In a couple hours, however, she doesn't know how she will be. "Mom, what's it like?"

"What's what like?"

She pulls her hand back, the softness of his dark hair still felt on the pads of her fingers.

"What's it like to live in your headspace?"

"Nowhere I want to be but like to stay," Victoria admits, honestly. "I'm sorry, Reed."

Reed pauses and looks away before smiling faintly. She can see JT behind that smile. Victoria is sorry for what she does in the past, what she is doing in the present and what she may do in the future. _Forgive me. Please. Forgive me, Reed, because I can't live long enough to forgive myself. Forgive me, sweetheart. Please._

"S'okay," Reed stares at her a moment, a quick passage of time from mother to son. _I forgive, Mom._ He stands, and pulls out his car keys. "Uncle Nick asked me to take you to therapy today. Don't worry about it. Jade's got Johnny and Katie. She's good with kids and I've got Billy on speed dial if anything."

Victoria frowns and rolls her eyes. Of course. Of course, Nick does. Because he knows her well enough to know two things will happen: punch one in the crotch or seduce him until she gets her way. Jared's her favourite of Nick's minions.

"Fine," she relents and grabs her purse. "Let's go."

In the car, Reed and Victoria don't say much to each other. They smoke together and Victoria watches him grip the steering wheel with a white knuckled grasp.

—

"Medium coffee. Black."

"Coming up."

"Thank you."

Travis drops Ellie off at school twice after forgetting her signed permission slip. Usually, he's meticulous about these things and he doesn't know why he isn't today. He does know, though. He wakes up a little later than usual, doesn't get his morning run in and Ellie plays this game of wearing her sparkly headband or tying her curly hair into a pulled back ponytail.

He's nearly about to snap at her even though she's just being five but Travis is projecting. Thankfully, he doesn't. Five-year-olds are still in the process of forging some autonomy for themselves. She's simply making decisions on her own, no matter how tedious to him. _She's only five, Crawford. She's your little girl. Ellie won't be five forever._

It's not okay, and he'll make it up to her. It's her mother he has issues with.

When he gets his coffee, Travis almost laughs. One of those living breathing issues is talking to him when all he wants to do is break the Hippocratic Oath and throw this three-dollar medium-sized coffee in Montgomery's face.

"I take it you know of your father's prison's escape."

Travis looks at his wife's lover, coolly. "Sure," he shrugs, "I also know the earth is round, and water is wet. Oh, I also know Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492. If we're being honest, I would really love to throw my coffee in your face but I spent three dollars on it. So, if we're done here, I'm going to go."

He breezes by other man when he says something that has Travis seeing red in his peripheral vision. Never mind that he spies a pregnant red-headed woman sitting alone on the patio picking at a muffin while twisting her engagement finger around. _Cassie_.

"The DA's office is doing everything to apprehend your father. I know you're doing everything to keep Meredith and Ellie safe. That's all I want."

Travis turns around and looks at the District Attorney like he's stupid. Because it's true. The man Meredith has exploring places on her body no other man but he should, must be truly, and clinically stupid. The sociopath running around is unfortunately his father. Nobody knows how it is. Nobody truly knows, but Sharon. Only Sharon.

"You say that like I give a shit about what _you_ want."

"You don't have to," Montgomery replies, and yes, thank God, the niceties drop. "I'm merely saying Ellie and Meredith are the priority here."

"Do your job," Travis says, anger making his free hand almost instinctively curl into a fist. His father bleeds into Damien Montgomery which blends into Meredith, and the mountain of bright glitter – Ellie – is separate from the rest. "You have no idea. Like I said, do what you're paid to. Stop wasting my tax dollars and my time, and catch the bastard."

Travis feels pressure behind his eyes and regrets not throwing that coffee.

"Get the hell out of my face."

Montgomery looks at him and becomes formal again. He nods. "As you were, Dr. Crawford."

He leaves, and Travis is going to deal with the woman at the table, head so far away in the clouds. They must be storm clouds. Travis hasn't spoken to his niece in a while, and right now, she looks like hell. The uncle in him feels for her after everything she is forced to deal with. The therapist in him wants to figure how to help her unravel it. Right now, she looks wrapped up in the tangles and knots in her own head.

—

He slides into the seat across from her and gently calls her name, "Cassie. Hey."

Cassie snaps out of whatever mental headspace she is and jumps back startled.

"Oh!" she relaxes and smiles. "Hey, Uncle Travis."

"Hey, Little One," Travis greets her, using his childhood nickname for his niece with a sympathetic look on his face. Understanding, never pity. He can't nickname Mariah anything – at least, not in public. She'll probably punch him in the face because she's prickly like that. Cassie's not little anymore. Travis is about to become a great-uncle. She's about to be a wife until her fiancé is found dead a couple months after he disappears. He remembers that night because she sobs in Nick's arm and Travis has a sinking feeling in his gut he can't quite shake. "I just wanted to check in."

Cassie sniffles, and he can see she's trying to pull pieces of herself together.

"Honestly, I'm… fine."

"Honestly?"

She breathes in and it's a shuddering exhale. She places a hand on her pregnant belly and truly does smile this time. "I took the morning off because I had an ultrasound. Every day, it's something different. The baby has been kicking all morning," she goes on, looking at him with teary eyes. "I found out the gender of the baby in the same hospital where what was left of him was staying after being left in a river. But David would want to know. You're going to have a great-niece. But…" Cassie starts to sob but stops herself. Usually, he can separate himself from his patient's problems but he walks a fine line and he's more an uncle than therapist. "…then I think my daughter won't have her dad here. David will never watch her grow. Take her to her first daddy-daughter dance. Watch her look beautiful in her prom dress. Give her away when she gets married. How do I do this?"

Travis moves over to sit beside her and wipes a tear away from her cheek.

"Here's how, Cassie. There's no linear time for grief. Cry if you want. Be angry. Scream even. But this baby needs you," Travis advises, glancing at his niece's baby bump. "You tell your baby that her father loved her and loved you very much. Then, niece," he puts an arm around her shoulder and kisses her red hair, "you let your family support you. Your mom, me, Noah, Faith. Even Mariah and your dad in their own ways…we're all here."

When he mentions Nick and Mariah – which he may have on some level intentionally – Travis sees Cassie tense up and there may be restrained anger in her eyes.

"For some reason, I don't believe that where Dad _or_ Mariah are concerned."

"What makes you say that?"

Cassie sighs, pushing her muffin away. Her response is like a clap of muffled thunder.

"They're lying to me, Uncle Travis," she says, tone like razor blades. "They always were."

* * *

 **VII.  
** _(get closer to me if you dare, i double dare 'cause I'm goin' numb)_

She's hot. Victoria is about to burst into flames and burn everything in her path. She's running through gasoline puddles and twirling in the middle of a forest of combustible trees. The flames rise against her pale skin until one by one, snowflakes fall. They are fat and blindingly white. They sizzle and melt against her and the earth trembles until under her. Colours of reds, oranges, yellow, blues and indigos swirl around. They sky is a dark shade of indigo, the clouds are orange, the sun is yellow and her eyes are a glossy sky blue. The moon hides behind smoky clouds and it bleeds red. Her snow is still white, falling, swirling as if someone shakes her snow globe.

Victoria is looking at a Venus de Milo. She's staring into the hazel eyes of Aphrodite and she runs a hand through the blonde hair. A paintbrush is in her hands as Victoria strokes the soft skin: pink glossed lips, her throat with barely-there pulse fluttering like the wings of a dragonfly, the pads of her fingers go along the curves of her shoulders, and the roundness of the breasts against red lace. Victoria runs a hand down her stomach circling the rim of the navel. She lets her fingers dance over the hips of this beautifully molded piece of art knowing there are peaks and valleys to explore.

She laughs and pushes Annaliese, a British doll added to her collection of toys, back into the folds of her marriage bed. The scent of Billy's cologne still lingers in the expensive thread count. Victoria straddles her hips, Annaliese smiling a coy smile with her bottom lip between her teeth. There are individual strands of soft 24-carat gold in between her fingers.

"My married brother would enjoy you. Very much," Victoria observes, taking in Annaliese's face. She traces a finger over her cheek and her cheekbones are quite striking. "But I like this wife and you're mine. All of you. What's my name, hmm?"

Annaliese smiles and answers breathily as there is a tighter grip on her hair, pulling her head back. There are lips against the base of her throat, the imprint of a slow, growing seductive smile.

"Victoria. Like the English queen and _you_ are my mine."

Victoria meets Annaliese's gaze through bedroom eyes and grins like a black widow spider to its caught and bound fly.

"Good girl."

She kisses Annaliese harder and painfully, biting her bottom lip just hard enough. It's enough to have Victoria high from the taste of warm metal mixed with sweet liquefied licorice.

—

She is sailing in the middle of the sea to find more precious rarities to bury in places only she knows. Annaliese moans as Victoria kisses her neck, smooth alabaster against her lips. She's blazing a path south. There's a hill as Annaliese arches her back. Victoria smirks against the slow forming diamond goosebumps and runs her tongue against the skin of Annaliese's inner thigh. It glitters and there's the salty taste of beads of sweat on her tongue. She finds the oyster between her slender legs and discovers that embedded pearl. It's soft, fleshy and a bright pink that is all hers for the taking. Victoria will not share this shining gem within her living statue. When Victoria discovers the rosy pearl's center, Annaliese spasms and clenches around her. Her cries intertwine with her orgasm as she becomes wet with the Thames River. It erupts and drips between her legs. Victoria drowns in it, sticky and sweeter than any kind of honey she's ever tasted.

—

Travis observes Ren is jumpy today, her usual quirkiness replaced by quiet sullenness.

She's not like this. In the last few hours, something has shifted in her mood and made her irritable and anxious all at once. Around ten thirty, he has enough and as her friend, is worried for her. He knows of Zach and how rough it's been. He knows of Ren and her deep seeded feelings of resentment when it comes to her NASA engineer twin sister, Rory. Well, her family as a whole.

"You're jumpy and moody."

"Someone peed in my Cheerios," Ren replies, without looking up at him. Her hair looks like she's tried to style it to disguise the bedhead. She makes her tapping on the keyboard louder than usual. Her dark eyebrows almost knit themselves today. At least she manages to dress herself like she always does and do her make-up. Travis knows how anal Ren is about things like that. Especially her make-up. She looks up at him long enough to raise an eyebrow and drops her gaze. "Happy?"

It looks like Ren is forcing herself to focus on her work so she can truly forget what is bugging her.

"Out with it, Clarke."

Ren laughs sardonically, eyes still on the computer screen with laser focus.

"Nice try, Doc. Don't _Clarke_ me."

Travis sighs.

"Nobody peed in your Cheerios. You hate Cheerios because they get soggy fast."

"Nobody likes soggy Cheerios," Ren rebuts while in a flurry of quick keystrokes. "Ask Ellie."

"You need to tell me what's bothering you. I'd like to think you respect me enough to be honest and not lie to me. I don't want to be wrong about that," Travis says, seriously. "I want to help you if I can and I'll do it for free. You know that."

The keyboard strokes slow down and then stop altogether. Ren's head snaps up and in her eyes, there's a flash of something there. He can't pinpoint it but there's a part of him that is worried about her and the other part that has annoyance. Not towards Ren as a person but rather as a factor of a situation that is frustrating for Travis to understand.

"Damnit, Doc!" she snaps at him and then apologizes. She continues, unusually quiet. She almost looks like she's about to cry, but doesn't. Ren isn't the crying type to begin with in all the time he knows her. "I'll lie to everyone else and not care. _Not you_. You're one of the best people I know. The idea that anyone would lie to you is offensive to me. Honestly, it angers me," she stands, grabbing her coat and purse. Ren says his name and now, he understands that it's serious. Ren stops her rant and exhales. "Travis, I have to take care of something. I'll be back in a couple of hours."

"I'll let you leave on one condition," Travis replies, softening a little. "You have to tell me if you're in any trouble. I can't help you if I don't know."

Some of Ren's warmth and smart mouth comes back. _Ah, there she is._

"Go save the world instead of worrying about me. I'm not in trouble. Promise."

"Okay," he relents. "Get outta here, Clarke."

Ren yells over her shoulder jovially as she walks out the door. "Thin ice, Doc. Thin ice!"

He shakes his head with a quiet laugh to himself. Travis is about to head to his office when he hears the click-clack of heels against the hallway floor. He swears he smell flowery yet expensive perfume in the air and turns around.

When he does turn around, there Victoria Newman stands. The patient with electricity in her hands and the ocean in her eyes. Her hair is a little tamed today and she gives him a smile. Victoria Newman is the new with sea breeze in her hair and the constant resident in his dreams.

—

If she's being honest, Victoria would not know where to begin. She would not know where the map in her mentality starts and ends. But the good doctor is brave enough to try. Travis is still cute in his polite, professional way. Nobody is too polite, too professional or too gentle. Yet she thinks he has a book inside of him sealed shut and it makes her curious. She wonders if the book inside of him matches the straight-laced exterior and if it doesn't, she's curious to know what twisted things possibly lies between the pages.

"I have a question," Victoria says, with a smile on her face and leans in as though she is ready for his secret. Any secret. _I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours._

Travis raises an eyebrow.

She sighs, and leans back, "Fine. I know, I know. It's all about me, me, me."

Victoria watches the blue pen spin and twist between his fingers. It's like a pinwheel of one colour and it still enthralls her. Surely, he must answer _this_ question.

"Where'd you learn to do that with a pen?" she asks, curiously.

Travis smiles. When the twirling stops, the blue pen lands somewhere between his middle and ring finger. He set the pen down on his desk and answers, "Picked it up in med school. Bad habit."

"Ah. I know a few of those. I have many," Victoria replies, grinning. "It's a strange one. Then again, I think _you're_ strange."

"Me? Strange?"

He's amused.

"Yes," Victoria leans in, spins the pen lightly on the wood surface of the desk and then stops it. "It's why I like you. Strange can be good, the best. People say I'm dangerous. Or mentally unstable," she laughs a bit and twists her ring, the stone always reminding her of blood. It darkens when there's too much of it. She's seen it from herself and from others. She shrugs. "Guess it depends on who you talk to."

"And why do you see yourself as dangerous?"

"I've overdosed on my own medication three times. Overdosed on ecstasy four times. Been in an institution twice. I don't raise my children because I'm too selfish for that, I admit," she says, the urge to drink herself senseless and touch a rainbow creeping up her back into her spinal column. _Let us in, Victoria. Fall into the rabbit hole. We are your Mad Hatters and Cheshire Cats. Wonderland awaits its queen. Come out and play, Your Majesty_ , the voices whisper. They tickle her ear and their fingers circle her throat again. She looks down at her wrist and the blue-purple streets and avenues underneath. Four horizontal welts on her right one. "I hear things that I know aren't there," she shrugs and smiles again. "I've been dangerous since my father left and my mother let me be raped."

He stares at her while looking pensive. Victoria crosses her legs and continues.

"Did it change my life? Sure. But you know," she smiles, wryly. "It's never boring."

"Your husband tells me you were on the ledge of the hospital roof. Tell me about that."

"Oh. Him," Victoria mutters, with a roll of her eyes. There's always Billy. He never goes away. He never leaves her. Billy is everything, but nothing at same time. He is everywhere. Billy is every rough kiss, every gentle stroke. He is every rough hand that grabs her, causing pain she's accustomed to. Billy Abbott is every soulful look that she says he loves her. He gives her love she doesn't want. Love she doesn't know. Love that scares her. Love that makes Victoria hate him making her feel scared or much of anything. "Yeah. He thought I was going to jump."

"Were you?"

Victoria stands, smoothly goes around his desk and sits on the wide mahogany space. She plays with the dark blue pen on the doctor's desk. She looks him in the eyes and they are a colour of blue she knows, recognizes and is a spark somewhere near her memory. They are blue – the same shade as the pill she lets melt on her tongue as the lines of cocaine expand and bloom into cotton candy clouds. Travis' eyes are the same blue as the tiny little key to her heaven and the gateway to her hell.

"Riddle me this, Travis. If you had one moment where you could do something crazy, be so out of control it's a rush and it makes you dizzy but powerful all at once, would you jump?" Victoria questions, as the gold of his wedding band seems to glow in the fluorescent lights of his office. "If you had one moment where you could destroy yourself instead of letting others push you to it, wouldn't you jump off a roof?"

She slowly smiles and Travis meets her gaze, questioning her in the silence. Victoria notices something has shifted with him. Them. Who is the patient and who is the therapist? Who bears the lock and who holds the keys in the palm of their hands? Victoria doesn't know. She doesn't want to know. Keeps things interesting that way. He stands up to meet her, hands soft and hot against her cheek.

Travis kisses her and Victoria notes he tastes like coffee and mint.

Black with no sugar. Peppermint. Strong yet sharp and soothing.

He pulls away, the smallest amount of space between them. She can't breathe and her heart stops, as she touches one of the hands on her face. _I know you,_ his eyes seem to say to her. _I recognize you too,_ her eyes say back.

Travis is no longer sounding like her therapist or even a man.

Just another person floating in the same grey space as her. They'd float together.

"I'd jump, Victoria," Travis whispers against her lips. "I'd jump and take you with me."

—

"If you had one moment where you could destroy yourself instead of others pushing you to it, wouldn't you jump off a roof?"

She's in that dress of oranges and reds again – the one that refuses to burn. Travis is seeing her in that space where Victoria questions his sanity and he does too. Her eyes are an icy blue against the flames on and around her. Victoria Newman singes his dark, straight lines. She's taken his markers, pens, and pencils and thrown them into her sea. They disappear into a Bermuda triangle never to resurface again. Would he jump? Would he jump into some dark deep seeded part of himself? Would he let Victoria Newman dangle the keys between her slender fingers and let her open it? He has Ellie's crayons though but he can't find them. He needs to draw the lines again. Travis has to draw them again and stay colouring inside their boundaries. Green has been buried in the dirt. Blue has been thrown up into the sky and not come down. Yellow and orange melt under the sun's heat. Purple blends in the darkness landing between stars.

He's not Meredith's husband. He's not Sharon's brother, or Ellie's father. He's not Ren's boss and best friend or Dr. Travis Crawford, the psychiatrist. Travis doesn't know what he is and everywhere around him, over him, and under him is grey smoke. It's thick and he can't see. It burns through his lungs and he can't quite find a place to starting breathing. He can't reach sanity just overhead.

Through the grey space, Victoria walks through, clear and bright. _Yes_ , he'd jump. He'd jump anywhere with _her_ , this woman who tumbles into his life and will not let him go. She's ensnared some deep part of him and wrapped herself around it. Victoria Newman is a beautiful, exotic creature of many colours with sharp talons sunk so deeply into him, but Travis doesn't care. He can't feel anything.

Victoria stares at him, silent and wide-eyed, her hand cool on top of his.

Travis jumps and doesn't stop tumbling.

He says the words and kisses her again a little harder with the space between them melting into non-existence and this time, he doesn't stop.


End file.
